


the reinvention of broken things

by agentx13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brainwashing, Dismemberment, F/M, Kidnapping, child trafficking, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27877045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Sharon is seven years old when she's kidnapped, fourteen when she's rescued by Hydra. They train her to protect herself and others.Steve is tasked to find Sharon, and he swears to follow through no matter what.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 13
Kudos: 35
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to Irene for part of this idea. Hope I didn't mangle it too badly!

_June 12, 1992_  
“Mom!” Sharon shouts. She’s supposed to be following within a foot or so of her mother, but there are so many things to see and do, so many noises and smells and sights. Their hotel is right around the corner from the local market, and to Sharon, it’s crowded and vibrant and exciting. She doesn’t often get to join her parents on their vacations, had begged and begged, and now, at seven years old, she’s finally been allowed to join. Not that her parents seem to be thrilled about it, but Sharon is. She’s never been to India before, doesn’t know if she’ll ever be back again, and she’s taking everything in as much as she can. “Mom, look!”

“Keep up, Sharon!” Her mom calls back impatiently, not turning around. “We have less than two hours before your father is scheduled to meet the ambassador, and we have to get ready. I know you don’t like dresses, but that pink one...”

A man nearby has a little monkey and holds it out for Sharon to pet. She moves closer. She knows not to trust strangers. She does. And so she doesn’t trust the man. But the monkey is another matter. She’s never pet a monkey before, and what harm could a monkey do? “Mom! Mom, look! A-” 

“For God’s sake, Sharon!” Amanda turns, ready to lecture her daughter. She’d _told_ Harrison Sharon was too immature to come along, and Sharon was proving her right at every turn.

Sharon isn’t behind her. Her eyes rove around the market, becoming more frantic as she realizes there’s no blonde head in sight. “Sharon?”

* * *

_June 14, 1992_  
Peggy Carter’s great-niece is missing. Finding her becomes one of SHIELD’s priorities, but so far their leads are turning to dead ends. It seems that whoever had taken the child hadn’t realized how valuable she is. There’s no ransom demand yet. No one questioned by any of the SHIELD agents seems to know the name Margaret Carter or Sharon Carter.

It becomes one of Hydra’s priorities, too. Alexander Pierce spearheads the move within both organizations. He has a daughter himself, he says. He can’t imagine the Carters’ pain, but he’ll do his best to bring Sharon home, to bring the situation to a happy resolution.

And if he happens to also fortify Hydra’s business prospects in the area, well. He’s always been good at making opportunities.

Nonetheless, there’s no word on the girl.

But two days is too early to lose hope.

“We’ll find her, Peggy,” he tells Carter, who sits (he hopes) deathly still in her chair across his desk.

She inhales. Too bad. She’s old enough that his hope of her demise grows by the day. Her eyes flash. She is at turns dangerously calm and dangerously angry. “I know.” Her voice goes quiet as she thinks again of what the girl must be experiencing. “I know.”

“Why don’t you take some time off,” he suggests. “Be there for your nephew.” After hearing part of the lecture Peggy had given her nephew’s wife, who had told their protection detail they weren’t necessary for the short distance they were traveling (truly, the woman is an idiot), he knows better than to mention Amanda.

“Yes,” Peggy says slowly, getting to her feet. “Thank you, Alex.”

“I hope you know you can always rely on me.”

“Likewise. Thank you.”

He waits until she’s gone before digging into the case again. The girl has to be out there somewhere, and while he doesn’t know what he might use her for, he knows that Peggy’s great-niece can be used. He just has to find the best way to do it.

* * *

_December 12, 1999_  
A Hydra raid finds a girl who might be Carter. It’s been seven years. They won’t know for sure without comparing fingerprints, maybe doing a DNA test just to be sure. In the meantime, Pierce orders that she and the other girls be treated well. All of the girls they’ve found over the past years have been treated well. Unless Hydra decides otherwise.

He rushes the tests. The agents are his and can be trusted to hide the results when they come in positive.

They’ve found her. Seven years, and they found her. Not in India – from what his agents found, she’d been bought and sold and moved between countries. Of all places, they’d ultimately found her in Canada.

It’s easy enough to slip away. A weekend trip across the border. The girls are all in a Hydra facility, and when he sees her in her private room (isolation is important to managing information), he pastes on a large smile and rushes to hug her. “Shari!”

She tenses. She looks at him as if she’s never seen him before. The Hydra agents who found her reported she barely remembers her name, remembers less of her home life. Evidently, her life had turned out badly enough she’d willfully repressed any memory of a better time. He wanted to find out who had done it, if only to hire him.

He quickly backs away. “I’m sorry. They told me some of what happened to you. I’m so sorry, Shari. I should have been there for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.” He wipes at his damp eyes.

She stares at him. She’d been skinny seven years before; now she doesn’t qualify as that robust. Her hair is thin, her skin pale and wan. Her most recent owner had liked waifs. “I’m- I don’t-”

He drops to his knees by her bed, careful not to get dirt on his trousers. “It’s me, Shari. Your father.”

“Dad?” She looks hopeful, confused, disbelieving, as if hope has betrayed her before.

He _really_ wants to hire whoever did this to her. He nods, ducks his head to hide his dry eyes until he can work up some tears to wipe away. He sniffles. “It’s me, honey. It’s me.”

She makes a choking sound, and then she starts crying, too. It isn’t as if anyone else has tried to claim to be her family. It isn’t as if anyone else ever will, not if Pierce gets his way. He’ll make her reliant on him. And when the time is right, he’ll use her.

* * *

_April 12, 2000_  
Shari - _Cheri,_ her dad says – travels a lot. She’s used to traveling now. But the circumstances are different. This time, she’s allowed to know more of where she’s going, and she’s allowed to look out of windows. Most importantly, her dad makes sure she always has at least two bodyguards. They change out often so that he can always make sure they’re fresh, and she never gets to know any of them, but it’s a relief to know that no one will ever grab her again.

She doesn’t get to see him as much as she wants. She misses her family. Her mother has died, and Cheri wishes it hurt more. But all she can remember is an impatient, lecturing voice. And maybe blonde hair. She can’t remember. She can’t mourn her mother like her father seems to expect her to.

He’s busy at work, though. He doesn’t want her to go back with him. It’s to protect her, because being near him makes her a target. Instead, he’s been sending her places to train to defend herself. To do more than defend herself, if necessary.

The past four months have done wonders. She’s still in therapy – will likely always be in therapy – but her hair is filling out, and she’s gaining weight, and she’s even gaining muscle. She’s still reliant on her bodyguards for protection, and she still gets lightheaded if she doesn’t eat often enough, but no one is hurting her, so it’s progress.

There’s still snow on the ground in this place. Russian, from the languages around her. She’s heard it before, and she draws nearer to her bodyguards without realizing she’s doing it.

“You’ll learn a lot here,” Rollins says. “But don’t expect them to go easy on you.”

“Father isn’t known for mercy,” she says simply. It’s true. None of the people he’s had her train with have taken it easy on her. The more capable she’s become, the more pain they’ve inflicted. But there are worse pains.

There are other girls here, and Cheri watches them curiously. Some of them watch her, too, but they pretend not to.

She stays there for a couple weeks. She doesn’t join the other girls for much. Doesn’t interact with them for anything other than training, where it’s clear to Cheri that she is far behind where they are. She pushes down her frustration.

“At least you aren’t tucking your thumb into your fist,” the one with the bright red hair says.

Cheri tries not to glare. “I’m not a total dunce. I just haven’t had training.”

The girl shrugs. “Stop anticipating your defeat.”

Cheri stares at her. “I’m- Am I?”

The girl nods sagely. “Here. If your minders don’t separate us, I will show you.” The girl adopts an offensive stance; Cheri matches it with a defensive stance. The girl throws a punch, slow enough Cheri can stop it. “You must practice these moves every day. Every defensive move must turn into an offensive move, if not _be_ an offensive move. From the beginning” Cheri mimics the move the teacher had taught her earlier that week. “You must learn it in your marrow. And then when men try to hurt you again, you might not be hurt.”

“What makes you think men hurt me?” Cheri snaps.

The girl looks at her patiently. There’s no pity there, but an understanding that is too close. “Perhaps I’m wrong,” she says at last, still striking slowly enough for Cheri to defend herself.

“Enough,” one of the bodyguards calls out. “Cheri! Come here!”

The redhead gives Cheri a wry grin. “Keep practicing, Cheri.”

Cheri doesn’t say anything, but she rejoins her bodyguards, glad to be silent in their shadows.

Nonetheless, she takes the redhead’s advice and practices until she can do the blocks and attacks in her sleep. And then she keeps practicing in case she may have to do them while in a coma. No man will ever hurt her that way again.

* * *

_August 12, 2001_  
Her father says Cheri’s experience gives her an important edge. He doesn’t want her to lose her edge. He wants her to agree to practice the skills she’s learned while in captivity, swears he will only let people near her who understand what she’s gone through, who know what’s at risk.

She agrees, because he’s her father, and she trusts him. She has to. Her therapist commends her on facing her fears, on taking back control.

But she’s sixteen, and she doesn’t like Rumlow as much as he likes her. But when she tells her therapist how she hadn’t liked Rumlow’s hand around her throat, hadn’t liked that he’d hit her, he tells her that Rumlow did it for her own good. Exposure therapy, he calls it. She must be pushed beyond her limits so that she can become limitless.

* * *

_February 12, 2002_  
Her skill with a gun is evident. She knows how to defend herself. Can fight some of her bodyguards to a draw, even beat some of them. She knows how to sneak in and out of places. But her skill with a gun means her father wants to find a specialist to train her.

The specialist makes her feel a shadow of fear she hasn’t felt in years. He wears a muzzle and thick glasses. His teaching method is gruff, no-nonsense. He always seems dazed at first, as if he’s just woken up, and he always seems to think he has better things to do.

But she listens, and she learns. Because her father wants her to make him proud, and so she wants to make him proud. He’d saved her. Hydra saved her. She has to do her best for them.

* * *

_March 12, 2003_  
Her first hit is a man named Harrison Carter and his wife, Amanda Carter.

It goes off without a hitch, and her father is so proud of her he stays in town overnight and even eats ice cream with her when he gets home from work.

It occurs to her she hasn’t celebrated with him before. She likes it.

* * *

_November 18, 2012_  
Steve has been in the present for less than a year. To say it’s messed with his mind is an understatement. He still spends most of his time expecting to turn around and find things as he left them in 1945. Every time, it physically hurts.

Not as much as this does.

He hates this building. The smell of cleaning solution on the linoleum. The thick beige paint. The over-the-top turkey and pilgrim decorations made of construction paper hanging overhead and pinned to a board on the wall. The place smells of death and despair, and it isn’t right that Peggy is here after all this time. She’d lived too long, accomplished too much, to be in a home where she’s tucked away out of sight as people wait for her to die.

But then, that was the problem, wasn’t it. She’d lived too long. She’d survived all her bursts with glory, and this was what happened to athletes who didn’t die young.

She’d lived longer than everyone else they’d known, lived longer even than many of her younger family members. If Steve hadn’t known she’d loved someone else, he’d have thought she was waiting for him.

Maybe, in a way, she was. She certainly is today. She has a thick folder in her lap, and her face breaks into a smile when she sees him. “Steve. I wondered why I asked for this. Now I know.” She lifts the folder with shaky hands, and he quickly takes it before her weak arms drop it.

“What is it?” The file says CARTER, SHARON, and he frowns. Peggy’s daughter?

“My greatest regret.” She eyes the folder. “No matter how bad my memory is, I can never forget it.”

He opens the folder and starts flipping through, anything to avoid talking about her dementia, her limited future. The inevitable end at the bottom of an unavoidable decline. 

His eyes rove over the papers inside the folder. Witness statements. Going back decades. His frown deepens.

“My nephew was a businessman. He wasn’t diplomatic to succeed on charm alone. But he was competent at manipulating situations to his advantage. ” Her tone is flat, matter-of-fact. “He went to Jaipur. In India. Wanted to boost his company’s standing and undermine that of his competitors, was even meeting with the local government to help stave off his competitors’ ambitions. He was given a guard. Those guards were to protect him, but he also had a wife and daughter to protect. Amanda, his wife,” her tone turns a little ugly, and he glances at her to see her features twisted, “wanted to buy some American drinks at a nearby store. She thought the ones in the hotel were too expensive. She took Sharon with her. Sharon disappeared on the way back to the hotel. We’ve had no confirmed sightings since. She was seven years old. There was no ransom demand, no indication she was taken because of me, but…” Her voice cracks. “Her parents are dead. I’m the only one left to look for her, to care about looking for her, but I _can’t._ ” She looks at him, her eyes desperate. “Please find her for me, Steve. I know she is likely dead. But I don’t have much time left.” She shakes her head to cut off his protests. “I don’t know how long I’ll remain lucid. Let me speak. I am _dying,_ Steve. I want to know what happened before I do. I want her brought home. If it must be in a box, so be it. If she’s still out there somewhere… If I could see her again. If I know she could heal, forgive us for not finding her sooner… _Please._ ”

He swallows thickly. He doesn’t know the first thing about tracking down missing people. But she needs him to say yes, and he can’t very well say anything else. “I promise.”

“Good.” She lets out a deep breath. “Thank you.” She looks away and goes quiet as her nerves settle, and a familiar glaze settles over her eyes. He can’t imagine how she managed to keep the dementia at bay for so long. The strength of will it must take.

He leaves before she can look at him, shocked that he’s back again, crying her tears of joy at seeing him again just as he was decades ago.

* * *

_February 3, 2013_  
He’s not having any luck. He has to talk to Tony about traveling to India, which means talking to Tony about why. Tony, it turns out, knows Sharon Carter.

“Our families were kind of close,” he explains, going through the folder. There are pictures of a beaming but awkward blonde child, her hair in loose ponytails or done professionally for more impersonal portraits. “I didn’t know about SHIELD back then – not many did. But Shari came to my parents’ funeral. I went to her parents’ funeral, too. Used to babysit her.”

After that, Tony – and JARVIS – are people to consult. Loosely speaking. Not that it helps.

* * *

_June 30, 2014_  
Natasha isn’t supposed to be around. She’s supposed to be hunting down her own roots. But she still manages to hang around him and Sam sometimes, claiming she’s helping them track down Bucky.

He’s got Sharon’s file open on the table. He’s got it memorized, but he always hopes something will jump out at him. He doesn’t raise an alarm when he sees Natasha going through it; she’s tracked them down to their hotel, after all. Minding other people’s business _is_ Natasha’s business.

She holds up a picture, studies it for far too long.

“What is it?” Steve asks.

She lifts the picture to him as if he hasn’t seen it countless times before. “She was in Russia. Turn of the century. Right before the late snow melted. She went by Cheri – I thought she was part-French. American accent. Knew Russian.”

Steve straightens. “You saw her? That’s- she would have been older then.”

“I’m sure. It’s the eyes. The ears. Her hair was lighter when she was a kid, but it’s her.” She looks sideways at him. “She had bodyguards.”

Steve frowns. “Why the hell would she have bodyguards?” Someone wealthy had taken her? To what end? He shakes his head. “That’s- it’s good news. I was convinced I was trying to find a grave. In India.”

Natasha’s lips tilt into a smirk. “Have you shown Sam this file?”

“Not yet,” Steve says slowly. “It’s personal.”

“Tell him.” She turns the file around and points to a name. “Because he would have told you not to trust what Alexander Pierce decided to write down.”

Son of a bitch. She’s right. Pierce had managed to get away, but they know now that he was Hydra. Steve had known Pierce was Hydra; somehow it simply hadn’t occurred to him that Pierce would stoop so low as to lie about a child’s whereabouts – Peggy’s great-niece, at that. Of course, given Pierce’s ties to Hydra, and Sharon’s to SHIELD, it makes sense that Pierce would. He can’t believe he didn’t of it sooner.

“Get your sketchbook. I’ll try and help you with a composite of when I last saw her.”

* * *

_June 3, 2016_  
The case has come together. Now that he knows better than to trust Pierce’s notes, he’s started from scratch. There are still holes. He still hasn’t found her. But he knows she’s out there.

Peggy died knowing Sharon was alive. He couldn’t give her more than that, but he hopes it was something.

It’s almost rote, now, to show Bucky the sketch and ask if he ever saw her. He asks everyone at some point. But Bucky stops his hand before it goes back down.

“She’s a sharpshooter,” he says. “Hydra had me train her.”

Steve feels ice goes down his back. “Train her for what?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. But they had me teach her.” His expression is troubled. “I need to make it right.”

“You need to heal,” Steve tells him. “You’ve done enough.”

Bucky shakes his head.

T’Challa, standing nearby, steps forward before an argument breaks out. “You can have both. Allow me to make some inquiries.”

* * *

With information procured by T’Challa, it’s only a couple more months before they find Sharon, living in a townhouse in Russia. He watches with Sam and Bucky; Natasha is on personal business. T’Challa refuses to allow his people to get involved any more than they have been, unwilling to set up a diplomatic incident with Russia. Bucky, too, is hesitant. He still needs to get the Winter Soldier triggers out of his head.

They watch for days. It’s a Hydra stronghold. They aren’t sure what can go wrong, what fortifications are in place. They watch as Sharon watches TV, as she trains with the other agents. As she eats and sleeps. It’s evident that Hydra feels comfortable here. Secure.

“She doesn’t have a phone,” Sam muses after a while. “Who do you know who doesn’t have a phone?”

Bucky half-raises his hand.

“Exactly,” Sam says. “People who are controlled. And probably have terrible credit.”

“Of course she’s being controlled.” Steve lowers the binoculars. “They got their claws into her when she was young. Changed her name. Who knows what they told her.”

“Are you _sure_ you want to do this?” Sam looks at the others. “We don’t know what she’s capable of.”

Steve closes the binoculars and tucks them into his suit. “Yes. Our objective is to get her out. We go in quietly. I don’t want Hydra to know we were there.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “You’re planning on turning her?”

Steve shrugs. “I’m thinking we’re fugitives and shouldn’t take unnecessary risks. What choices she makes after are hers to make.”

* * *

Cheri knows someone is watching her. It’s a sixth sense of sorts. A spatial awareness she’s had since she was locked in rooms with men so much larger than she.

She goes over the security protocols, but as far as she can tell, everything is secure. Not that it matters. She can spot the holes in their security, just as she’s been trained to. It’s only a wonder no one else seems to see them. She’d been able to see them in different places for years, but she’s always been told it was fine, not to worry, they’ll protect her.

Complacency. It was the undoing of the great.

She’s always armed now. No one, she vows, will ever take her against her will again.

She just has to wait for them to strike, and she’ll teach them that lesson in person. She’s almost glad for the weaknesses in their security. He should try soon enough, and then she’ll end this.

Day after day passes. She doesn’t doubt her instincts. She’s good at what she does, and it’s partly because of her instincts. But nothing happens, and it’s starting to irritate her.

Turns out, the asshole was just waiting.

She goes to bed as normal, but she wakes to a noise in her room. Or maybe he’d intentionally woken her. All she knows is that one of his hands goes over her mouth, and she’s already starting to fight back when something jabs her in her shoulder. A needle.

She keeps fighting, but she knows it’s a losing battle. As her vision blurs and her limbs turn sluggish, she wants to cry.

She’ll settle for killing him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To break Sharon's programming, Steve will need help from his friends.

Steve waits until they’re back at their safe house before he sets her down. He doesn’t say anything as Bucky binds Sharon’s wrists and ankles and gags her.

“Trust me,” Bucky says. “She knows how to kill you.”

Sam crouches nearby, studying her face. “She doesn’t look so tough.”

Steve rubs his eye. It’s already healed, but her fist had connected with it, hard. Even taken by surprise in a deep sleep, she’d managed to fight back. “Bucky’s right. I think I should handle this on my own.”

Sam looks betrayed.

Steve shakes his head. “This is my mission. I’m grateful you helped, but she’s dangerous. I want you to go to Wakanda with Bucky, see that he’s taken care of.”

“Thanks,” Bucky drawls. “I always wanted to be babysat by _Sam._ ”

Sam jerks a thumb at Bucky. “It took a team to take him down. I should stay here.”

“Bucky’s fine now,” Steve reminds him. “Besides. We’ve already gotten the drop on her. I can handle it.”

Bucky sighs. “Give her another sedative every four hours until you’re ready for her to wake up, whether she seems like she’s sleeping or not.” He still looks troubled, so he busies himself prepping the next dose.

Sam watches Steve. “What are you going to do? While we’re safely away?”

Steve pulls out his phone but doesn’t dial the number he knows from memory. “Hope I have enough credit.”

Sam frowns, but he reluctantly goes to pack. When he leaves, he takes Bucky with him. With luck, they’ll be out of the city before Hydra even notices Sharon is gone.

Steve takes a breath and calls the number. It only rings twice before the person on the other end picks up.

“You’d better have an apology ready.”

“I found her.”

Tony gives the barest pause. “Who?”

“You know who. I’ve got to break the programming. I need a place. Far away from people.”

“Some place no one can hear her scream,” Tony notes sourly.

Steve glances at the sleeping woman on the floor, her features peaceful and her chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. “Yeah.”

Tony is quiet. “What else?”

Steve reviews what he’ll need. “A private plane. A stocked kitchen. I don’t want her to see anybody that she could try to convince to rescue her until she realizes we’re the ones trying to save her. I need things to keep her restrained. Just temporarily. Padlocks. She’ll need some clothes. No belts. No shoelaces.”

The alarming sounds Tony had been making since he’d mentioned restraining her finally turn into words. “You think she’d kill herself?”

“No, I think she’d try to kill _me._ ”

“I’ll be sure to include belts and shoelaces, then.”

Steve hopes Tony is joking but also isn’t sure. “Bucky’s getting help. Therapy. He’s working on breaking his programming so no one can use him like that again.”

“Oh, I’m _sooooo_ glad for _Bucky._ ” His voice drips with hatred, and Steve flinches. This isn’t going well. Tony takes a breath. “Where are you?” After hearing the answer, he’s quiet for several seconds. “FRIDAY has a flight for you in an hour. There’s a cabin in upstate California. Secluded. I’ll make sure it’s stocked before you get there. Send me her measurements. I’m not buying you clothes, and if I think her measurements are too close to yours, I’m not buying _either_ of you clothes. And to be clear: I’m doing this for her. Not you.”

“I know. Thanks, Tony.”

“See? You _are_ capable of saying what’s appropriate. When you _want_ to.” With that, Tony hangs up, and Steve is left to shove a grown, bound woman into a suitcase so he can smuggle her out of the country. 

To say his life hasn’t gone as he expected is an understatement.

* * *

She wakes in a wood cabin, her wrists bound to a chair. The chair is positioned in front of a couch. On the couch is a man with the beginnings of a beard. She forces her head to still and her gaze to focus. She knows him. Oh, she _knows_ him. All of Hydra knows him.

“Kidnapped by Captain Rogers himself. To what do I owe the honor?”

“To whom, actually. I promised your Aunt Peggy I would find you and rescue you.”

Her eyes narrow. She doesn’t have an Aunt Peggy. “You’ve saved me. Thank you.” She smiles. Kind. Patient. Optimistic. The sort of smile her face is meant for. “So can you let me go now? At least untie me? The plastic kind of hurts.”

He leans forward. He isn’t wearing a uniform. Only jeans, a T-shirt, and boots. He actually looks kind of good. He’d look better if he looked like he believed her. “Not yet.”

Nope. He’s not buying her ruse at all. That’s fine. She doesn’t like pretending to be sweet, anyway. She tries another tack. “I didn’t think Captain America would be into bondage.” She tilts her head to the side. “The beard isn’t a bad look on you.” She tugs at her wrists. “But I didn’t consent to this, and I imagine Captain America _is_ big into consent, so if you don’t mind…”

He doesn’t move to untie her. That’s fine. It’s only a matter of time before she gets out on her own.

But he _does_ move. He takes a photo from the seat beside him. “Can you tell me who these people are?”

The photo is Harrison and Amanda Carter. Her first kills. That doesn’t make sense. Captain America wouldn’t be interested in a hit, would he? The cops should be questioning her, not him. 

She looks politely confused. “Who are they?”

“Your parents.” He points to the woman. “Amanda Carter.” His finger makes its way to the man. “Harrison Carter.”

She looks at him as if he’s insane. Because he must be. The serum must have done something to him, stolen his brain’s processing power in order to make his muscles stronger or something. “Those aren’t my parents.”

He lowers the photo. “Who do you think your parents are, then?”

“Alexander and Christina Pierce.”

He stares at her in a mix of confusion and horror that he’s trying so, so hard to shove down. 

She shrugs as much as her restraints will allow. “Ask him. My mother is dead, but he’s my dad. He’ll tell you. His number’s in my phone.”

He doesn’t reach for her phone, any phone. Not that she’d really expected him to. “What do you think your name is?”

“My name is Cheri Pierce.”

“Your name is Sharon Emily Carter. You were born to Amanda and Harrison Carter-”

“ _No._ ” Her voice is firm. “Are you trying to brainwash me or something? Because I know better.”

“You’ve already been brainwashed, but not by me.”

She glares at him. “I’m not weak enough to be brainwashed.” She peers more closely at him. “ _Are_ you Captain America? Or are you just some lookalike? Is your attempt at a beard trying to hide a scar or something?”

He holds up another photo.

“Margaret Carter. Founder of SHIELD. She works with my father.” She pauses. “Worked. I hear she died. Poor thing. Dementia ate her brain, didn’t it?”

There’s a flash of pain, and she congratulates herself on scoring a hit. Margaret Carter had meant something to him in the war. It appears she still does.

But she needs to be careful. Maybe she can still convince him to let her go, but she won’t succeed if she hurts him too much. He seems to think she’s been brainwashed, but does he think she’s innocent, too? Sweet? A hapless, childish victim who can be trusted not to run away?

“Did you know Pierce was Hydra?”

Convincing him she’s innocent is going to be hard if he knows the truth.

“Hydra?” She makes a face. “Like. The multi-headed… was it a dog?”

Nope. He isn’t buying it. He switches tactics. “Do you remember the day you were taken?”

“Of course.” Her voice turns quiet. She doesn’t have to pretend anything here. “It was awful. Why? Hoping to live vicariously by proxy?”

He doesn’t say no, just leans forward and sets his elbows on his knees. “Tell me.”

She does. The trip to India. The monkey. The man taking her to see some more monkeys, a whole family of them. Just a couple feet away, he’d said. She doesn’t say she hadn’t realized for years that he’d lied, that there’d never been more monkeys. To this day it makes her feel stupid.

“What do you remember about your mother?”

Cheri shrugs. “She didn’t want to be there. I don’t know if she knew what was going to happen, or if maybe part of her wanted it to happen.”

His voice is soft. She hadn’t meant to score pity points with that, but it had gotten her some. “And your dad?”

“Busy. He’s always been very busy.”

“Is that why he wasn’t with you at the safe house?”

“I was taken because of him. Because of his work. He puts distance between us to protect me. And I have bodyguards.” She glowers at him. “They’re not going to be happy with you. Dad, too. He might not have the power he used to, but he’ll still take you apart.”

Captain America doesn’t look particularly bothered. “I’d love for him to try.” He runs a hand over his beard as if the sensation of touching it is still new. “He lied to you.”

She shoves down the immediate reaction to argue. She has to draw him out, gather more information so she can figure out a way to get out of here, with or without his help. “How so?”

“He isn’t your father. You’re not even vaguely related to him. His wife isn’t even named Christina. His wife is even still alive. He told you that to make you easier to control. He lied to you while you were vulnerable to use you against SHIELD.”

She stares at him. “Do you hear how ridiculous you sound right now?”

He studies her. The silence stretches. She knows this interrogative technique, too. She doesn’t squirm, and she doesn’t offer information. He breaks first. “What was your childhood nickname?”

“Cheri. For Cheri.”

“It was Shar. Or Shari. Short for Sharon. With an S-H. You got the name Cheri from Pierce, right?”

She presses her lips together. “You’re not listening to me. Pierce is my father. Of _course_ he gave me my name.”

“Except it isn’t your name. It’s just a name that’s close enough to your own you could believe it was yours. And a name far enough from yours it wouldn’t be flagged as you if you popped up in any databases.”

She shakes her head. “The serum damaged your brain, didn’t it.” Her voice turns scared, desperate as she pulls at her wrists. “I won’t tell. I swear. If you let me go… No one needs to know about this.”

He looks at her, sad and unhappy and haunted, and gets to his feet. “Are you hungry? I was thinking soup for dinner. It’s supposed to get cold tonight.”

She frowns. _Damn it._ “How long do you expect to keep me here?”

“As long as it takes, Sharon.”

* * *

He doesn’t know why he’d thought this would be easy. What was he thinking? That childhood photos would jog her memory? Hydra had worked for years to get her to believe their version of reality. And he hates to say it, but Hydra had a lot to go on. The few photos of Sharon with family tend to be of her with Peggy. Very few with her parents, and all of those are clearly staged. Still, he should try it. He needs to make her doubt Hydra’s story.

He feels like he’s failing Peggy.

He keeps an eye on her while he makes the soup. She’s trying to undo the zip ties, but he’d used several, and he knows they’re secure. Even if she _does_ get past those, her ankle is chained to a support beam in the middle of the room.

There’s a knock at the door. He freezes, looks at it as if he can see through it. By the time he thinks to look at her, she’s already shouting that she’s in here, that Captain America’s gone crazy.

He sighs. There’s only one person he can think of who would come out all the way out here.

Opening the door, Tony steps past him, the remnants of the Iron Man armor disappearing into his regular suit. Steve will never understand some kinds of tech, that’s for sure.

“I don’t like him, either,” he greets Sharon. He walks toward her, and as she recognizes him, or realizes he won’t help her, or both, she stops yelling. He stops just out of reach for her to attack, studying her face. “FRIDAY? Scan. Everything.”

“Yes, sir.” Steve returns to the soup, keeping half an eye on the proceedings as blue light moves from Tony’s phone over Sharon.

“It’s her, Tony,” he says, dropping some carrots into the pot. “I’m sure of it.”

“ _You’re_ sure of it.” Tony pokes Sharon in the arm with his phone, making her yelp in surprise, and then he moves back before she can lash out. Good. Steve doesn’t think Tony would appreciate him pulling the man out of the way in case Steve’s underestimated the zip ties.

FRIDAY speaks again. “Results confirmed. Subject is Sharon Emily Carter. Born December 29, 1984.”

Sharon shakes her head. “My birthday is December 12. And my name is _Cheri._ Cheri Pierce.”

Tony looks at her for several seconds. “FRIDAY. What footage do you have of Sharon?” He holds out his phone, screen facing upward, and the projected light above shows images of a very young Sharon attending the funeral of Howard and Maria Stark. Yearbook photos with the name Sharon Carter underneath.

“ _No,_ ” Sharon repeats. She’s pale. Beneath her anger, there’s genuine confusion, maybe a touch of panic. Maybe. “That isn’t me. Why are you doing this? It’s psychotic?”

Tony’s jaw sets in a way Steve recognizes. “FRIDAY. Age progression.”

A school photo of Sharon morphs into her adult face.

“Stop it!” Sharon shouts. “You’re wrong! The Avengers have _always_ been wrong.” She’s working at her bonds again, and Steve barely has time to set the ladle aside before she’s free, tackling Tony to the ground, her fist going up to punch him.

Steve catches it and jabs her with the sedative, holding her fist as her body slowly slumps against Tony. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“You’re telling me,” Tony mumbles. “Did you have to do that?”

“You’d rather I let her kill you?”

Tony doesn’t deny it, and Steve frowns.

After a moment, Steve picks Sharon up and sets her carefully back in the chair. “We’ll need stronger restraints. She’s fighting.”

“That’s good.”

Steve looks at him.

Tony points at Sharon. “She knows on some level we’re right. Or else she wouldn’t fight like that.”

Well, Steve reasons. That’s one way to look at it.

* * *

She wakes with her wrists handcuffed together. They’re getting smarter. What’s curious is that there are bandages around her wrists underneath the metal. She can feel the cloth; she’s familiar with it, even after all this time.

Captain America is a softy. Good to know.

“Why are you doing this?” Her voice comes out hoarse, and his hand appears with a drink and a straw. She sips, coughs, and sips again.

“Because you deserve better than what they did to you. It’s like taking off a band-aid. It’ll hurt, but things will be better after.” He pulls up a chair. He’s smart enough not to sit in front of her, instead sitting to the side. He holds a thick bowl. She can smell the soup. He sticks a spoon in and prepares to lift it up, flat and full.

“Are you seriously going to feed me like I’m a child?”

“Until I can trust that you won’t try to hurt anyone or escape.”

She smirks. “Tony Stark deserves worse than anything I can give him.”

He frowns. “I see we’re dropping the act.”

Damn it. She’d never been good at long undercover stints. “So what happened between you two?”

He doesn’t answer. “He gave you a present. Says you’re the closest thing he has to family.”

“What’s the present?”

“A watch. With AI. It will monitor your vitals.” He looks at her steadily. “You can’t take it off.”

“And it will track me. For when I escape.”

“And here I was thinking you wanted to convince me to take those cuffs off. Open.” He feeds her as if she were child, but she’s hungry enough that she goes with it. For now. And if her tongue plays with the spoon more than necessary, well.

“So do you make a habit of kidnapping girls and tying them up?”

He gives her a long look. “I tracked you, you know. For years. I know what happened to you before Hydra found you.” She feels a chill that has nothing to do with the wind howling outside. “I know about some of the parts after. Enough to put together a pretty clear image. I know you’ve been taught to seduce people. It won’t work on me.”

She looks at him, tilting her head just enough for her hair to fall forward and frame her face. “You have a lot of confidence in yourself, Captain.”

“Sharon.”

She tenses. “That isn’t my name.”

“Yes, it is, Sharon.” He offers her another spoonful of soup; she doesn’t take it, and he sets the bowl aside. “Do you want to see what I found?”

“No.” She hates how small her voice is. She can talk about that time. She can. She just doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like how people had looked at her or touched her. When she thinks about it enough, she can still _smell_ them.

He ignores her. The _asshole._ “Let’s go over it together.” He gets up. When he returns, it’s with a thick, broken-in folder, worn with age and use.

She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see it, but she can’t put her hands over her ears. He tells her about coming out of the ice. About going to meet her Aunt Peggy. About being tasked with finding her. Finding out Hydra infiltrated SHIELD. Finding out her father lied about her.

It can’t be true. It _isn’t_ true. But he keeps talking. He won’t stop. And he keeps finding ways to put _that_ name in different sentences, the one he claims is hers when it isn’t. She wants to hurt him. She wants to cry. She wants to break his back over her knee. 

He stands again. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom and shower. I’ll be back in a few.” He leaves, and she breathes a sigh of relief and opens her eyes, only to find that he’s placed photos around the chair. A little girl who looks like her, smiling at the camera in the arms of an aging brunette, a Margaret Carter of thirty years before. Her with her parents. Her parents. Her with Tony. Her alone in a house or in Tony’s workshop, closely supervised by his robots.

No. _No._ That girl isn’t _her._ She can prove it. She just has to get out. When she gets out, she can find Dad, and she can prove it.

She doesn’t look like Dad as much as she looks like Harrison and Amanda. She’s got Amanda’s nose. Harrison’s jaw.

_NO._

She needs to make him stop. Stop showing her these pictures. Stop telling her these _lies._ It isn’t that she’s weak, that’s not why she’s starting to doubt herself. It’s that he’s put so much work into it. And it’s a waste of her time. That’s it. This is an inconvenience to her.

He comes back, his hair still damp.

“I remember Amanda and Harrison Carter,” she tells him. “They were my first kills. Is that what you wanted? A confession? Because there. I killed them. Shot them.”

He stares at her. Not in anger. Not in victory. In _pity._ She hates it so much she wants to cry. And it’s made worse when he comes closer and presses a large, warm gentle - so gentle – hand on top of hers. “They should never have made you do that.”

“STOP IT!” She tries to put distance between them, despite being largely immobilized. All she can do is shrink away. “Stop it! I know it’s an act! Just hit me! Fuck me. Whatever it is, just get it over with! No more fucking mind games! Just hit me already!”

The pity won’t leave his eyes, and she wants to stab them out of his head. He brushes her hair out of her face with soft fingers. “I’m not going to hurt you, Sharon.”

The name hurts, a physical pain in her chest, and she hangs her head. “Stop it. Stop it…”

This time he moves closer, awkwardly hugging her, but he’s still soft, still gentle, and he smooths her hair as she sobs into his shirt.

“I’m not her. I swear I’m not her. Just let me go. Please. Please, let me go. Don’t do this,” she whimpers. “Please stop.”

He doesn’t. “It’s okay, Sharon. It’s going to be okay.”

Her helplessness just makes her cry harder.

* * *

When Sharon has cried herself to sleep, Steve makes his calls. Tony, who does a poor job of pretending the watch isn’t also a listening device, and then Wakanda to talk to Bucky, who’s deep in a deprogramming procedure and can’t be disturbed. He checks up with Sam, to let him know everything’s okay so far. At length, he calls Natasha, who picks up almost immediately. He fills her in.

“You need me,” Natasha says flatly. “I’m coming.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“You know I can help.”

Steve’s eyes go over to Sharon, her hair obscuring her face. “Fine,” he says quietly. After a moment, he adds, “You don’t seem surprised they had her kill her own parents.”

“I can see why they did it. To test her loyalty. And, as a bonus, it means it’s harder for her to come back. She has to believe the lie, because it’s less horrifying. It’s her mind’s way of protecting itself. But she has to face the things she did. Hence why you need _me._ ”

He doesn’t think it’s wise to press the issue. “Thanks.” He doesn’t use her name, in case Sharon is only pretending to be asleep. “When?”

“I can be there tomorrow.”

He looks across the room. “Thank you.”

Without further ado, Natasha hangs up. After several seconds, Steve moves to the chair and gently frees Sharon from it. She stirs, but her wrists are still bound behind her back, the cuff around her ankle is secure. She watches him warily as he picks her up and places her carefully on the couch, then covers her with a blanket.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispers.

“Because you deserve better than what’s been done to you.”

Her eyes close as if she’s in physical pain.

He sits on the coffee table and watches and waits until she falls into an uneasy sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon escapes to go hunting. Will it finally be enough to break her programming, or will it make her fall harder?

She has a faint headache when she wakes up. She’s never been good at crying. It’s never pretty when she does it. And it draws so much energy from her that she’s ragged after. Even now, the day after, she feels tired and drained.

He’s making breakfast. It’s surreal, being kidnapped by Captain America and waking up to find him making her breakfast. But then, she supposes her father _is_ important within SHIELD. No, Hydra. Hydra.

Her eyes fall to the photos still arranged around the chair, and she turns away.

He looks over at her, and she wonders how closely he’s been watching her and for how long. He wipes his hands and walks over, fishing a key out of his pocket. She turns, and he unlocks the cuffs. “You need to use the bathroom, right? Wash up?”

She shrugs. It isn’t that she’s done fighting. She’s just taking a break.

He looks at her in concern that makes her want to cry again. She can’t remember the last time someone looked at her like that. Sure, they’d looked at her in concern, but it had never been such deep, sincere concern. How is it that a stranger can look at her like that but not her own father?

She rubs her wrists through the bandages, but his fingers gently push hers away. He’s careful as he undoes them, and she looks at her new watch, black and sleek and with gold highlights. Trust Stark to throw in something fancy.

“Healing.” Her gaze focuses on the tears in her skin from when she’d freed herself. “I’ll put some fresh ointment and bandages on after.” He looks at her, half imploring, holding her hands gently in his. “Maybe we can leave the cuffs off today?”

She lifts her ankle; the chain on her ankle cuff sings along the floor.

He grimaces. “Not yet. I have someone I want you to meet first. Someone else I want you to talk to, if he’s available.”

“Another Avenger?”

“Maybe.” He stands and helps her to her feet. He’s still gentle. Guiding but not pushing. She wants to hate him for it, but she wants that gentleness, too. It’s foreign and strange and yet she wants to wrap herself in it and sleep forever. “Go get cleaned up. Tony left some clothes for you. They’re in the bedroom.”

She goes, and half the drawers are full of clothes that look like they could be for her. The rest are empty, which is good. She’d worried for a moment that he might expect her to play housewife. She showers, taking her time as she tries to focus on a plan and not on the photos, on the questions they raise. She tries to think of how she can poke holes in his case, but she ends up thinking of all the holes he’d poked so many in her father’s story.

No, not a story. The truth. Just… one that Captain America isn’t familiar with. There’s got to be an explanation.

She gets out, dries off, puts on a bra, shirt, and sweater (how they got her measurements for a bra, she doesn’t want to know). She opens the door. “Hey. Captain? Can you take the chain off long enough for me to put some pants on?”

He pokes his head into the bedroom. “Sorry.” He pauses. “How’d you get the other pants off?”

“I tore them. But I can’t tear these if I want to wear them.”

“Tore them,” he repeats.

She nods as patiently as she can and sticks her manacled ankle out of the doorway. The air on the other side is cold, making a ripple of gooseflesh appear on her leg.

He hesitates. “You know you can’t run right now. My breakfast would go to waste.”

“We can’t have that,” she agrees, her patience wearing thin. “Come on. I don’t want to run away half-naked anyway.”

He ducks down and undoes the lock, and she closes the door to finish getting dressed. “When you’re done, open the door just enough for your foot.”

“You really don’t trust me, do you.” She tugs on her socks. They’d been smart enough not to include shoes. Captain America is right; she wants to run. How could she not? She sticks her foot out the door.

“Would you?” He cuffs her ankle again, then backs away quickly.

She slips out, trying not to feel amused. Because he’s right – if the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t trust him. Truth be told, she likely would have killed him by now.

“And it’s Steve,” he says.

She looks at him in confusion.

“My name. You don’t need to call me Captain. I’m Steve. And you’re Sharon.”

She looks away. “You shouldn’t sound so certain.”

“I’m absolutely certain my name is Steve,” he tells her. “It’s been my name all my life.” She starts to argue, and he grins, gently guiding her to the table. The utensils are plastic. Again, smarter than she’d anticipated. “Peggy looked for you for decades. When she couldn’t search anymore, I took over. I’m as certain of your name as I am of mine. You’re Sharon Carter.”

She sinks into her chair. “I’m not.” But try as she might, she can’t put in the same conviction she’d worked up the day before.

“You’re certainly not Cheri Pierce. Syrup?”

She looks at the pancakes he’s put together, already cooling on the table. “Sure,” she says at last. “But can we not talk about me? What about you.”

He grins at her. “I’m boring compared to you.” So that would be a no, she thinks. “Did you always want to be an agent?”

She shrugs. This is going to be a long breakfast. A long, _quiet_ breakfast.

* * *

Natasha arrives that night, hair mussed and clothes wrinkled from travel. She shoves her duffel bag into Steve’s chest and otherwise ignores him. Her eyes quickly find Sharon on the couch, where she’s going over the case file with an intensity that says she’s begging the universe to find fault with it. “Do you recognize me?”

Sharon looks at her for a long, long time. “Russia,” she says at last. “The boarding school.”

Natasha’s lips twitch. “The Red Room. Do you remember what I told you?”

“That’s how I remember you.”

“Did you do it?”

Sharon’s eyes flash. She shoves the papers she’s reading out of the way. “Want to find out?”

Natasha smiles. “That’s a yes, then. Steve. Go get wood. Sharon and I need to talk.”

He leaves just as Sharon is insisting her name isn’t Sharon. It’s easy enough to get wood. And he finishes too soon. As much as he’s enjoying the respite, it’s cold out here, and he doesn’t think Natasha’s done doing… whatever it is she’s got planned. He peeks through the windows, but every time he does, the two are still talking intensely on the couch. Or at least, Natasha is. He thinks Sharon starts crying again at one point. He’s happy enough to stay outside when he sees that. Natasha has a better idea of how to comfort crying people than he does. The cold wind suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

He sets about collecting even more firewood.

When he next looks, the coffee table is broken, along with a chair, and their hair is disordered. Papers and photographs are scattered around.

He runs to the front door and barrels in to find Natasha handing Sharon a cup of tea. “It’s okay,” she says.

“Did-” He looks at the table. “You fought?”

Natasha gives him a disdainful look before glancing at Sharon. She spots the beginning of a black eye; Sharon has a busted lip. “Men think everything is a fight. Sometimes it’s just another form of communication.”

“ _You_ can say that,” Sharon says ruefully. She doesn’t look at Steve. He wants her to.

Natasha smiles, cat-like. “Because I won.”

Sharon makes a sound like a very quiet snort.

Steve pulls out a chair and sinks into it. He thinks he can fix the broken chair. Maybe the table. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Sharon says, too quickly. She still won’t look at him.

He looks at Natasha, who shrugs. “Okay,” he says cautiously. “I didn’t miss anything. I… I’ll go carry in the wood.”

When he comes back, Natasha banishes him to the bedroom, staying with Sharon on the couch and talking. When he emerges the next day, she stays just long enough to share in coffee and pancakes, and then she returns to her mission.

* * *

Sharon is quiet after that. She still doesn’t like being called by her name, but she doesn’t fight him. Doesn’t tell him off. It’s like she’s working things out on her own, and he’s happy to let her.

He has to push, though. Just a little. So when he gets Bucky on a video feed, he sits Sharon at the kitchen table to talk to him.

She stares at the feed, then at Steve. “I’m not talking with you here,” she says stubbornly.

He purses his lips. “It’s cold outside.”

“So get more firewood.”

He grumbles, but he thinks Bucky can help her, so he goes.

* * *

She’s Sharon Carter. The knowledge is unwelcome. It’s like ice in her veins. Both Natasha and Bucky had walked her through Hydra’s methods, had walked her through the brainwashing techniques that had been used on her. When she argues, they take her arguments apart with patience and skill. They’re so assured she wants to hit them – she _had_ hit Natasha. And still, Natasha had understood. Had explained that it was normal to fight the conditioning she’d undergone.

“But it isn’t conditioning,” she’d said, desperate to be believed.

Natasha had looked at her matter-of-factly. “Not even you believe that. Tea?”

And Sharon – Cheri? - wants to believe she hadn’t been a victim all her life. But realizing she’s been lied to and used, and in such ways, and for so long… It makes her feel ill. It makes her hate herself. Has she been nothing but a pawn since she was a child, kept and used, rescued and bound?

She has to find out on her own. Independent sources. No SHIELD. No Hydra. She has to track down the original facts.

And that means either convincing Steve he can trust her not to double-cross him, or leaving on her own.

It’s faster, and easier, to leave on her own. All it takes is a week of acting like she’s coming along, like she’s buying it (she isn’t, she isn’t, she isn’t), and then pilfering some of his syringes he’d used on her.

She comes back from the bathroom. He grins at her when he sees her, and he has a nice grin. It’s okay to acknowledge it now, since she won’t see it again.

She curls up next to him, and he goes back to reading part of the file. It’s the only reading material here. She knows it’s by design. Once his attention is off her, she disguises the move with a cough, and reaching behind him for a tissue, and then she jabs him with the syringe.

He knows immediately. He fights. This time, she’s the one who’s ready for him. She’s the one who has the syringes. And she’s the one who knows she’s in the right.

It takes several more syringes, and then she uses the handcuffs and every other means of binding him that she can find. She’s not sure how long the drugs will work with the serum in his system.

She steals his boots and puts them on, grabs some knives from the kitchen, and then she leaves.

* * *

Steve wakes, feeling groggy, but it doesn’t last long. And then he’s up on his feet, standing in his socks.

He looks down at his feet. Had she stolen his shoes?

Damn it. She’d stolen his shoes.

He hangs his head. He knows the watch is tracking Sharon’s location. He knows he needs to call Tony.

Screw it. Fine.

Tony picks up on the third ring. “Doesn’t sound like you’re with her, Steve.”

“I know. And she stole my shoes.”

Tony laughs. “She just became my favorite family member. I take it you need a ride?” He pauses to chuckle. “And some shoes?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Just… Just help me find her again. I thought we were making progress.”

“Me, too,” Tony admits. “But fine. I’ve got a plane en route. Took off when I realized she got away.” He chuckles again, unable to help himself. Maybe. “I’ll see about getting you some shoes, too.”

* * *

The town the stream leads her to is small, but it’s big enough to find a library. That’s her first stop.

She approaches a librarian who appears harried and bored at the same time. “Excuse me,” Cheri- Sharon? - Cheri, yes, Cheri says, affecting her friendliest smile. “I need help looking something up. I’m not very good with computers, but I’d like to know about Alexander Pierce and his family.”

The woman’s brow wrinkles. “The SHIELD guy? The one who was actually Hydra?”

“Yes,” she says. “A family friend mentioned I might have family in common with him, and I’m trying to find out if it’s true.”

The woman straightens, intrigued, and trudges slowly over to what appears to be an ancient and even slower desktop computer, as if a super soldier isn’t currently waking up and following a trail here. “Let me think…” She sinks into the chair, logs in, clacks away… For someone denied access to most technology, Cheri is fascinated to watch the woman’s fingers fly over the keys with speed and skill. “Ah. Here we go. Alexander Christopher Pierce. No siblings. Parents deceased. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Cheri Pierce.” _No. Wrong._ No, right. Right.

The woman leans in, then shakes her head. “I can go farther up in the family tree, but his only family is a daughter.”

_That’s me,_ she wants to say, but she shoves it down. “Can you find anything on the daughter? Maybe I can ask her.”

The woman turns back. “Maryanne. Looks like she made the news a while ago when she got rescued by Nick Fury.”

“Is there a picture of her?”

A few more keystrokes, and newspaper stories pop up. A girl, older than she had been, with reddish-blonde hair and bright blue eyes in the arms of a man wearing an eyepatch that Sharo- Cheri can’t place but feels she knows.

The girl looks nothing like her.

She swallows. “I’m sorry. I know this is a bother. Is there any way I can contact her? If we’re distant cousins or something… I don’t know. If my family has ties to Hydra, I’d like to know.”

“Of course,” the woman says soothingly, and gets to work. “Looks like she’s in New York City. I’m afraid I can’t narrow it down any more than that without more information.”

“Thank you,” she says, her training screeching at her to kill the all the potential witnesses. She starts walking backward toward the door. She needs to go. She doesn’t need to kill this woman. How many people _has_ she killed? She’s lost count. How many deserved it? Her own parents. No. She hadn’t killed her parents. She’d killed strangers. Only strangers. Only people Hydra said needed to be killed, like witnesses. Kill the witnesses. Kill the woman. “Thank you,” she says again, and then she runs out of the library, runs out of the town, she throws up behind a bush.

* * *

Steve exhales as he hears Sharon retching over the speaker.

“Gross,” Tony agrees. The plane hums along, but it’s a plane of his design, so the cabin is quiet enough to hear.

“She didn’t kill the woman. That must be what she was trying not to do.”

“What now?” Tony asks. “New York?”

Steve hesitates, then nods. “Sounds like she’s tracking down Pierce’s next of kin.”

* * *

She can feel them watching her. Well, she can feel _someone_ watching her. She looks at the monstrosity on her wrist. She’d already tried to get it off as she’d begged, borrowed, conned, and stolen her way here, but it wouldn’t budge.

She holds it up to her nose as she studies it once again. “If you’re going to be this annoying,” she tells it, “you ought to also be _useful._ ”

It doesn’t do anything, and she sighs and slips in through the backdoor. That’s the thing about fancy buildings. There’s the front entrance, and there’s the entrance for the help. That’s the thing about fancy buildings. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a hotel or a residence – all the security is where the fancy people can see them, but the staff is rarely taken seriously enough. If you know the code, it’s easy enough to get in and never have to deal with security at all. The help is, essentially, invisible.

Once inside, she sheds her generic maid’s uniform (truly, the help is invisible). Underneath, she’s wearing an expensive dress. And now that she looks like she belongs here, she knows she’ll be treated as if she belongs here. She makes her way up a flight of stairs to get the elevator where it won’t draw attention. From there, she rides to the correct floor. It’s taken a lot of work and looking pathetic to get this far, a lot of flirtation and faked gratitude.

She likes to think she’s good at this, but she suddenly remembers Steve’s question about what she’d wanted to be as a child. The thought bothers her. Inexplicably. Is this who she’d wanted to be? She can’t remember.

She knocks on the door. After several moments, a woman answers, her reddish-blond curls glistening in the soft lights. Everything about her is perfect. She doesn’t have bodyguards watching over her. She doesn’t have muscles or scars. She has a healthy glow and she seems utterly at peace.

Alexander Pierce’s daughter is a civilian in every sense of the word, and Sh-Ch?- whoever-she-is feels bile rise in her throat. Why hadn’t _she_ been allowed that? But she knows. She already knows. She just doesn’t want to admit it.

“Yes?” Maryanne asks. “May I help you?”

Sharon smiles her most winsome smile. “Hi. I’m Cheri. I just moved in down the hall and, like a complete moron, locked myself out. Would you mind terribly if I call downstairs and asked them to help me?”

Maryanne is a civilian, but she isn’t stupid. “Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll call downstairs?”

“Sure,” she says with a smile. “Whatever help I can get.”

Maryanne turns from the door, but she leaves the door open, and it’s child’s play to slip in and strike her from behind.

Sharon looks down at her, then looks at the window across the street. She doesn’t have long now.

* * *

“That isn’t good,” Tony says, watching through his visor. His suit automatically magnifies the view in the window, as Sharon goes to the kitchen and pulls out a knife. “I’m going over there.”

“Not without me,” Steve says grimly.

Tony lifts off. “Want to bet?”

By the time he blasts into the window, Maryanne Pierce is in a pool of blood, and Sharon is gone.

The audio from her watch pipes up. “I take it you’re still listening.”

He swallows and patches into the watch so he can answer. “And if I am? This isn’t you, Sharon.”

“ _Stop._ Stop saying that name.” Okay. So they hadn’t made as much progress as they’d thought. “She’ll live. Get her someplace where Pierce won’t know that.”

“And what about you? Come on, Sharon. Let us _help._ ”

The signal goes dead.

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, sir. It appears she used a homemade EMP device on the watch. We won’t be hearing back anytime soon.”

Tony sighs and curses just as Steve bursts into the room. “We lost her,” Tony greets him. “Maybe for good this time.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon goes on a killing spree, but who are her targets and why?

She knows all of his safe houses. She knows most of Hydra’s. She’s been shuttled back and forth between them for nearly all her life. After a while, when she’d been under their thumb enough, they got careless about hiding all the locations.

Pierce, even in disgrace, is high-value. He’ll be in one of the nicer establishments.

It takes a raid on a smaller safe house, one with fewer guards, to get into the network, and then she uses that to track him down. He’s still in New York.

She scopes out his safe house as she’d been trained. She uses her training and instincts to let herself in, and then she clears the place, room by room. She doesn’t want any interruptions, and most of these men have hurt her before. Now that she knows the truth, she can’t conceive of how _much_ they’ve hurt her. How they _knew._ How they must have mocked her and crowed to themselves as they used her for sex and forced her to “face her fears.” If she’d had enough time, she’d have done more than simply killed them.

She leaves his bedroom and his office for last. He’ll be in one of the other, alone so the guards don’t distract him from whatever work he feels he has to do.

She goes to the bedroom first. Nothing but his personal effects, and not many of those. He must have left his life, the other one, the one where she’s a useful secret, in a hurry.

She enters the office. “Dad.”

“Cheri!” Confused, he gets to his feet, belatedly affecting the relief and happiness he’s supposed to feel. Now that she knows none of it is real, it’s like watching a play with a terrible actor. “Where have you been?”

“With Captain America. I got you something.” She hands him the paper shopping bag she’d carried all this way. Maryanne had only shopped at the best of places, apparently. The name on the outside of the bag is fancy.

“His head, I hope?” He looks at her knowingly and opens the bag without looking at the name on the side. Inside is a large plastic bag enclosing a series of other plastic bags, and he unwraps each one with careful fingers.

“I didn’t want blood to leak out.” She moves to lean against his desk.

He gets to the last bag. He’d be an idiot by now if he didn’t realize it was a detached hand. But he seems confused, and rightly so. It’s clearly a woman’s hand. He should recognize the ring on it. Judging from the pictures in Maryanne’s living room, it was one of her signature pieces.

“I want you to say my name, _Dad._ ”

He own hand starts to shake, sending the fingers on the detached hand trembling. “Cheri? What is this?”

“If I’m your daughter-”

“Of _course_ you’re my daughter.”

“You only have one.” She pulls a knife from her boot; she’d switched to shoes her own size before she’d left California. “And it isn’t me, right?” He still doesn’t seem to understand, but that’s all right. She has experience facing difficult truths and knows how hard this must be for him. “Turn it over.”

He does, revealing the small tattoo on the inside of the wrist. His breathing is ragged.

“You took me from my family. True or false.”

“We _rescued_ you.”

“You _pretended_ to be my family. True or false.”

He doesn’t say anything, but the way he looks at her isn’t the way a father would look at someone he considers a daughter.

“Do you love her?”

“GUARDS!”

She grins at him, and he sinks into his chair, understanding from her smile that they’re dead. “Do you love her?” Her grin widens. “ _Did_ you love her?”

“She’s my daughter,” he says, as if that’s answer enough, and she nods. That’s a yes.

“You had me kill my parents.”

His voice is cold and cutting. He seems to accept that the jig is up. “And you were so happy, weren’t you. Your first kills. I treated you to ice cream, and you were so desperate for my approval you never even questioned it.”

Her blood goes colder than his voice, colder than the ice cream that seemingly-innocent night. How warped, to think of that night as a moment of innocence.

“My name is Sharon Carter. True or false.”

“My only regret is that we couldn’t find a way to let Peggy know before she di-” His words are cut off in a strangled gasp as she stabs him.

“You’ll live,” she tells him. “It’s just a shoulder wound. And pain is order, _Dad._ ”

“Don’t call me that,” he seethes.

She grins. “I left her alive.”

He exhales in relief. It’s a more genuine emotion than he’s ever shown for her.

“You trained me well.” She points to the hand on his desk. “They won’t be reattaching that. Or her face. And she has other wounds. And I’m going to make sure she knows it’s because of you. What you did to someone younger than she was when she got kidnapped. How she got a real rescue, and I got a sham. How I got used.”

He laughs. With the amount of pain he’s in, it’s a ragged sound. “You’re _jealous?_ ”

“And angry,” she adds. “You let your coworkers _rape_ me. Abuse me. You stole _everything_ from me. And I’m going to make sure you watch everyone you hold dear, every _thing_ you hold dear, leave you.”

He smiles, maddeningly confident. “Cut off one head-”

She rolls her eyes. “No one believes that bullshit. It’s juvenile. Just boys desperate to be taken seriously as men, attaching themselves to a legend they don’t understand.”

His smile is gone. “We’ll win, Sharon.”

And there it is. Her real name from his lips. There’s a mixture of sadness and elation, of relief and anger. It’s real. She’s really Sharon. Sharon Carter. He’s admitted it. With that one word, he’s admitted everything.

She dips, her knife flashing in the light as she slices through his tendons. “Be grateful, Alex. I’m keeping you alive.” She wipes her knife clean on his shirt. “After all. You can’t suffer if you’re dead.”

“Pain is order,” he hisses.

She grins. “We’ll see, won’t we.”

* * *

Months pass. Steve can’t find her. He knows she visited Maryanne Pierce again at some point, because Maryanne is suddenly raging and refuses to see her father, is opening up to the authorities about things she saw and heard throughout her life. There might be fear of another visit from Sharon there, but he isn’t sure.

Multiple Hydra strongholds become home to bloodbaths. Sharon doesn’t seem inclined to offer any mercy to Hydra agents. He doesn’t blame her, but he wishes she could see a better way, could find something more than anger.

But she doesn’t, and nothing changes.

Flowers are left at her parents’ graves, at Peggy’s graves. He can’t even prove it was her.

He searches for her in between missions with Sam and Natasha, and sometimes they help him search for her, but he only finds where she’s been in the forms of bloodied bodies, and nothing changes.

* * *

Summer is hot, even in Ithaca. She’s dressed accordingly, wearing light, loose clothes that mold to her body when she moves or a faint breeze stirs. All the better to show she isn’t armed, right?

She presses the doorbell.

“Name,” a distracted voice calls. It’s familiar. She’d last heard it on her wrist.

She swallows. She doesn’t know what welcome she’ll get. “Sharon Carter.”

There’s silence on the other end. It stretches long enough that, despite herself, she starts to fidget.

The door opens wide, and Tony stands there, watching her suspiciously, in a black T-shirt and black cargo pants. “You’re not here to kill me, are you?”

“No.” She points to the door, careful to keep her hands close to her body so as not to worry him. “But if you’re worried, you shouldn’t open the door so wide. It would be really easy to kill you. If I wanted to.”

His hand falls from the door. “It was a test,” he says, clearly lying. He’s still watching her. “So what brings you here?”

She bites her lip, looks away. She’d even practiced in the mirror before she’d come over. Had practiced for weeks in the mirror. Had rehearsed the words, even a little speech. But suddenly, none of it feels right, none of it feels like it’s enough. Why is it suddenly so hard? “I think I need help,” she says. It comes out as barely a whisper.

“Killing people?”

She shakes her head.

He watches her some more, considering, then moves aside. “Come on in.”

* * *

It’s strange to know Tony Stark as a person and not as Hydra sees him. He’s funny, self-deprecating. He doesn’t like building weapons like she’d been taught he does, carries guilt from the ones he’s built. He sees redemption in other people, in _her._ He gives her a place to stay. He has his lawyers start the process of reclaiming everything she was supposed to inherit from her family.

“Only because it means you still won’t be as rich as me,” he tells her, in that joking way she knows means he doesn’t mean it.

She has multiple therapists. She double-checks that all of their techniques are on the up-and-up. She learns how to use computers. Tony even teaches her how to make small robots, though hers never act like his.

He introduces her to Pepper when she’s earned enough of his trust, and to Rhodey and Happy.

The compound is empty save for the two of them one evening, and they’re watching cheesy horror films on a classic movie channel when she says, her voice quiet, “Thank you.”

He glances at her.

She looks into her popcorn as if she’s searching for the perfect piece. “I know we’re not technically family. I know you didn’t have to help me. But I’m- I’m grateful.”

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He doesn’t look as pleased as she could hope, but she can understand that. Now that she’s genuinely processing her trauma, for real this time, her nightmares and quirks have increased. She doesn’t know how long it will take to get them under control. She isn’t easy to get along with all the time, even with herself. All she knows is that she’s on the right path.

He gets up and leaves the room, and she reassures herself that she’s strong enough to handle whatever comes her way and does the breathing exercises two of her therapists had taught her.

When he returns, he tosses her a small box. It’s wrapped haphazardly in the paper he uses to draw designs.

Inside is a watch, much like her old one, but sleeker.

“That one comes with an AI,” he explains. Like her, he’s not accustomed to genuine emotions, and he keeps his gaze focused on the television. “I get beeped in if there’s trouble, but otherwise, no. You’re on your own. Free as a bird.”

She half-smiles at him as she puts it on. Experimentally, she takes it off again, and it comes off easily. She puts it back on. “Thank you.” The tiny screen comes to life, and they spend the rest of the movie going over how it works.

“You _are_ free to leave, you know,” he says during the commercial break. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here. I’m not kicking you out,” he adds quickly. “But I’m curious to see what you become.”

She frowns. “What did I want to be when I grew up? Did I ever say?”

He looks disgusted. “I remember. You wanted to be a spy, like Peggy. I’d go babysit you and you’d shoot me with Nerf balls.”

Her memory of her childhood is a series of fragments with no idea of what’s real and what isn’t, stories Pierce and other Hydra agents told her to legitimize their lies, maybe even just to amuse themselves. She trusts his version of events more than hers. And now that he says it, she can picture the yellow foam balls hitting him as he sits, unsuspecting, on the couch. “Ironic how things turned out, I guess.”

He shrugs. “You’re not that kid anymore. You’re not any of the people you were.” He looks around, as if checking to make sure they’re alone. “Life is about invention and reinvention,” he says quietly. “Each of us – all people – are in a constant state of reinvention. And if we do it right, we become something greater.” He shrugs again, glancing toward the television. “Which is why I want to see what you become.” His eyes drift back toward her. “I’ll support you. No matter what. You’re the only family I have, outside of Pep and Rhodey. We may not be blood, but we’re family.”

“Even if I track down someone you hate?”

He studies her for several seconds; she can see the wheels working in his mind. “I will always hate that asshole’s guts. Probably. But when it comes to you, I’ll find some wiggle room. He brought you back, after all.”

The rest of the night is spent silently trying to work out her feelings and get them in check. She fails enough to give Tony an awkward hug before she goes to bed.

* * *

Steve shakes his head and turns the heat up another degree.

“Dude, it is _sweltering_ in here,” Sam snaps.

“I felt a chill,” Steve argues.

Sam rolls his eyes. Natasha simply takes off a layer of clothing.

They all freeze at the knock at the door. A glance toward each other, and Sam and Natasha take up positions just out of sight. Steve waits until they’re ready, and then he peeks through the peephole. “It’s okay,” he whispers back. “I think.” He opens the door. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sharon says, looking somehow shy. It’s a good look on her. “Um. Wow. Hot in there.”

“I felt a chill,” he repeats, now regretting having felt anything at all. Turning up the heat because he felt a chill. Ridiculous. “How are you?”

“Good! Good.” She shoves her gloves into her coat pocket and shrugs out of the coat. “I’m in therapy. Lots of therapy. They’ve agreed to meet with me virtually while I’m away.”

She won’t look at him. Why won’t she look at him?

“Hi, Sharon,” Natasha greets her, stepping forward and giving her a hug. “Sam and I were just leaving.”

“We were?” Sam asks. Catching Natasha’s look, he nods. “We were. To go… elsewhere.”

“Sam?” Sharon looks at him and grins. “Oh! You’re the one I almost killed!” Sam’s smile disappears, and Sharon’s grin widens. She holds up her hands. “Kidding. Kidding.”

“Ha,” Sam says humorlessly. “Hilarious.”

Natasha chuckles and tugs on Sam’s hand. “Come on, Sam. Let’s go find… elsewhere… to be.”

 _Subtle,_ Steve thinks. He looks back at Sharon as Natasha and Sam bicker their way down the hall. Belatedly, he realizes he’s being rude and holds the door open.

She slides past, and he takes her coat and hangs it in the closet.

“Maryanne Pierce pulled through,” he says.

“I know. She was always going to.”

“None of the Hydra agents did.”

“They were never going to.” She looks around the small hotel room, the bed with the papers and photos and metrics all over it, and the other pristine and waiting to be slept in. She turns to him. For all her grace, for all her deadly ability, she looks uncertain. “I want to thank you,” she says quickly, as if afraid she’ll lose her nerve otherwise. “I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.”

“ _If?_ ” he echoes.

She frowns. “Oh. The drugging thing? That was just turnabout and fair play, really.” Her frown deepens, as if concerned he might have another sedative to use on her. “Do you have more syringes around here somewhere?”

He makes a face. “No. I didn’t want them used on me, just in case.” He pauses. “Where are my boots?”

Her face matches his. “They’re being used? Somewhere.”

He gets the impression he shouldn’t press it. “So you’re doing better?”

“Much.” She looks again to the papers on the bed. “I was hoping-” She cuts herself off, then breathes and tries again. “I was hoping I could work with you. Learn your methods a little.”

He crosses his arms. He hates it, but he has to wonder how sincere she is.

“I understand,” she says quickly. “I get it. I know.”

“Do you?” he presses. “You drugged me. You killed people.”

“You drugged me and kept me chained in a remote cabin in the woods knowing I was a child sex trafficking victim,” she counters.

When she puts it like that, it sounds bad. Shit. 

“Fine,” he says slowly. “But we’re going to have rules. Parameters. I want to know I can trust you.”

She nods. “I want to earn your trust.” And he believes her.

* * *

They work together. They get closer. He starts to trust her. He develops a deeper respect for her abilities. He gets to know her as she is, see how hard she’s trying.

Still, he doesn’t realize what else he’s developed for her until she disappears on the field in Wakanda. And then he hates that he never figured it out sooner, that she was another person he never told.

When he travels through time, he remembers his promise to Peggy. But he has a mission, and he doesn’t get a chance until he goes to return the stones. He dances with her, just as he never got to do back then, and he tells her about her great-niece, Sharon, who isn’t born yet, but will be. That she’ll ask him to help her, and he will make good on that promise even though Peggy won’t live to see it. But he wants her to know that Sharon will be safe, will be someone Peggy could be proud of.

And then he goes home.

* * *

Sharon goes to Ithaca and stays there. She hadn’t been able to help Tony or Natasha, but she does what she can now. She helps with the funeral, with the memorials, she does her best to look after Morgan, who’s smart enough to know Sharon has no idea how to relate to kids, and to know it isn’t healthy that Sharon is so willing to kill any fully-grown man who gets near Morgan who aren’t Rhodey or Happy.

It’s a week after the funeral, and Sharon is starting to feel like the AI on her wrist, CAROL, is her only real friend left. Sam and Bucky want to hang out with her, and that’s something. At least she knows them.

 _Life is about reinvention._ But what is she supposed to turn herself into now?

The doorbell chimes, and her head pops up. No one else is here. Pepper, Morgan, and Happy are at Tony’s cabin in upstate New York. No one else feels comfortable here without him. She doesn’t feel comfortable here, either. She just couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

Cautiously, she approaches the door. “CAROL, is it a reporter? Because if it is, I might kill them.”

CAROL syncs with FRIDAY somehow and reports back. “It isn’t. You should open the door. Trust me.”

That’s the weird thing about Tony’s creations. They’re almost as human as people. The more she interacts with CAROL, the more human CAROL sounds and acts, the more CAROL learns and anticipates.

But Sharon had trusted Tony, who created CAROL, and Sharon trusts CAROL.

She opens the door. And then she stares at the man who’s there in front of her. She’s so surprised she can’t even respond when he pulls her closer and kisses her, soft and gentle as ever.

“I’ll see myself out,” CAROL announces.

It takes her a couple seconds to realize it’s him, to realize he’s safe, that she’s safe with him, that the kiss isn’t unwelcome, that she might like the feel of his body against hers, and that she’s safe with him. Having gotten to know him, she finds herself believing, really, truly believing, that he would never hurt her like so many others have, and the idea almost overwhelms her. She sinks into him, losing her fingers in his hair. Even when he’s desperate, he’s gentle. Even when he’s clutching her tight, he’s careful with her.

“I never told you,” he tells her, breaking the kiss and leaving her to gasp for breath. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

She looks at him. _Reinvention._ She smiles. “Show me.”

He does. He’s gentle, but he isn’t _all_ soft.

* * *

She waits until she knows he’s drifting off to sleep. His body is firm but soft and comforting beside hers. Her sheets - _their_ sheets – are tangled around their legs.

“I love you, too,” she whispers.

He doesn’t open his eyes, but he smiles and pulls her closer. He doesn’t try to have sex with her again, he doesn’t try to hurt her, he just wraps an arm around her as he falls asleep.

This, she thinks, this is real. Realer than a name and realer than a nightmare.

She doesn’t know who or what she’ll be tomorrow, but she feels she’s up to another round of reinvention. She looks forward to seeing who she’ll become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who's read this fic! I honestly wasn't sure how it was going to go, and I'm glad that so many people are enjoying it! Thank you!
> 
> And since I'm trying to get word out, if you'd like to vote on the prompts for next year's [Sharon Carter Month,](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1goHBjj2uGHsi5JVNTwyxcFecFHwsTkSPIbtbZKe7eQ0/edit) please feel free to do so!
> 
> And again, thank you for reading, kudos-ing, and commenting! I can't tell you how much it means to me!


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